facts and figures and instructions for dancing
by Lady Shaye
Summary: Somehow she's still breathless. / Picture perfect belongs to fairy tales, and fairy tales just aren't Caroline Forbes's thing. Nor are they Klaus's. They never have been, and they probably never could be.


A/N: I just wanted to say happy holidays, everyone! I'm planning on uploading a lot of stuff tonight for the holidays, as a bit of a gift to all of my lovely readers! Just know that I love you all and that I hope you like this!

Summary: Somehow she's still breathless. / Picture perfect belongs to fairy tales, and fairy tales just aren't Caroline Forbes's thing. Nor are they Klaus's. They never have been, and they probably never could be.

Rating: T

Disclaimer: I could never own TVD. I can't decide between Daroline, Klaroline, and even sometimes Steroline. So, it's not gonna happen, sorry.

Pairing: Klaus/Caroline

* * *

_facts and figures and instructions for dancing_

—Peter Gabriel, "The Book of Love"

* * *

(_four_)

This is her beginning.

Her mother reads her a bedtime story. (She knows that secretly it's to make up for the fight Mommy and Daddy had over dinner—they fight a lot lately, but bedtime stories fix it more than enough, each and every single time.)

She reads _Beauty and the Beast_, with the pictures from the pretty movie. There is rescuing and kissing and a happy ending and a pretty girl with a handsome boy (and he has a ponytail, which is kind of weird, but she ignores it, because sometimes they have those when Mr. Disney is in charge of the picture books).

"More, Mommy!" she squeals excitedly, still not quite ready for sleep. "Just one more, _pleeease_."

Her mother frowns down at her and shakes her head once hesitantly. "Sorry, Care bear, but Mommy has to get up early too." She grimaces, checks her watch, runs her fingers through her hair. Fidgets, like she always does, because even now when her daughter is young and innocent and will believe everything and anything, she still doesn't know what to say to her baby girl. "Gotta catch some bad guys in the morning, sweetie."

Caroline knows her mother has a dangerous job. But it's okay, because life can be like a Disney movie sometimes and daddies always save mommies when they're in trouble. Her father will always come for her mother, no matter how many arguments they have over meatloaf and mashed potatoes and tiny, fearless Caroline in the corner, trying her hardest not to spill the milk because only _babies_ spill the milk.

So she yawns, gives in, and lets her mom press a short, cool kiss the crown of her head ("little princess Caroline, fairest in the land," her mother teases instead of a gentle motherly _goodnight_, and then she is gone) before she falls asleep.

She rests easy, because the heroes always save the damsels in distress, and sleeps with her fairytale book tucked under her chin, sprawled open—spine up, flipped to some random page—across her chest.

But the next day Daddy looks scared when he gets on the phone and he leaves her with Elena Gilbert's parents (who are really nice and never fight over dinner) and Mommy doesn't come home till past midnight and she has a plain old white cast on her arm.

("A bad guy got me," Liz chuckles at Caroline's worried expression matching her father's, "but I'll be okay, honey. Why don't you come draw a pretty picture on my cast? Go get you Magic Markers. I promise I won't look till you're done.")

Daddy didn't save Mommy.

It shouldn't be such a big thing because she's four and she's a big girl now, but it is and the fairytales are all wrong and Mr. Disney is a _liar_.

This time, things change.

Now, her parents fight over spaghetti and garlic bread (oh, the irony of the garlic in the years to come) and little wilted fearful Caroline, silently cutting up her pasta. They're fighting, they're angry.

What if he doesn't save her _next time_, too? What's if it's someone bigger and scarier, someone who could really hurt her so that she won't be fine anymore?

What if Daddy doesn't save Mommy the next time that she's in trouble, like he's supposed to?

* * *

(_twelve_)

She's a preteen now and Matt and Elena share funny long looks these days and her dad is a jerk and her mom is just plain stupid. She listens to metal music now, her tiny blond head bobbing with the beat as she sits in her room alone and ignores her mother downstairs, calling for her (when Liz is actually home, that is).

Her fairytale book is hidden in the closet somewhere, along with all the other junk from when she was just a snotty little _kid_.

She doesn't believe in happily ever afters anymore.

* * *

(_seven_)

The second grade is putting on _Sleeping Beauty_ and she gets to play the princess whose name she can never pronounce right. She practices at home, like her nice pretty new teacher said she was supposed to do. She scrunches up her nose, trying to introduce her part to "the prince," played most obligatorily by her father.

"Aroror," she tries again, and her dad laughs and ruffles her hair.

"You'll get it, kiddo."

"Get what?" she says, scowling so hard that her face hurts. Her lips wobble themselves into an appropriate pout. She knows what he's talking about, she just doesn't want to be told that she's wrong _again_.

(That's always been a problem of hers, Mom says.)

But her dad must take pity on her, because he only musses her curls again and states, "You'll get your happy ending one day, honey."

She believes him with all the innocence and hope and joy that a seven ("_I'm almost eight_!" is her standard greeting these days) year old can possess.

* * *

(_thirteen_)

Her dad calls her and she hangs up on him without a word and shoves his picture—broken frame and all—in the closet, folded within the pages of her storybook.

She picks up the shattered glass from where she threw the photo against the poor wall first, and tapes up her hands herself and says nothing about any of it to her mother, despite the fact that the cuts and scrapes don't stop bleeding for a long while.

She thinks it says enough by itself that her mom doesn't notice it on her own, because her mom is never there. She's alone in her home, bleeding inside and out.

Story of her life from then on.

* * *

(_seventeen_)

It's almost (but not quite, not really) funny. She's seventeen and so much has happened to her life. She's been through hell and dated an abusive vampire (and he's her sire too, talk about fucking irony) and killed a man and nursed a werewolf and now she's dancing with the original devil (ha, ha).

(Her life is a supernatural hell. She doesn't even get the Salvatore brothers to make up for it. Seriously. Where is the fucking justice.)

His arms are warm around her and she's so tired and she really doesn't _want_ to reject his advances _again_ because when she looks at him there's a sudden comfortable warm fucking _light_ inside of her or something.

("—_you're full of light_…")

She throws away the memory, nestled in his embrace (can he really be this warm when he's been dead for, like, a billion years?), and she hides the attraction because it's what she's supposed to do again for the millionth time.

Sure, she may no longer believe in fairytales. (Damon Salvatore and Katerina Petrova made fucking _sure_ of that, took care of it in their own separate ways—him with blood and sex and pain in the night, her with pillows and threats and hisses as the dark closed in over her vision.) But she's not stupid.

And even she knows that in the horror story (like her life has become) you still should never fall for the villain. And that's what he is, a villain. He probably always will be. People like him just don't change, she decides. So she chooses to ignore the lingering attraction knotting in her gut, causing turmoil in her heartbeat-less chest area. Almost like she still has a beating heart, and a pulse, and almost like she is _alive_. But she isn't, and Katherine wouldn't even _be_ a vampire if it weren't for him and neither would she, so she decides to leave her desire for him well enough alone. Because she wants to be with Tyler, right?

But he holds her tighter, firm in his grasp, and somehow she's still breathless, despite everything.

* * *

(_seventeen, two months previous_)

Oh my God, she _hates_ him, Klaus. And vampires and doppelgangers and stupid million year old curses. She hates the thought of dying—_again_—because she'd do it for Elena (what kind of best friend would she be if she didn't?) but it was so scary the first time and if she does it again she won't wake up, will she, and she doesn't think she can understand how someone so old—old usually meant wise in Disney movies, didn't it?—can be so cruel and evil. So goddamn _heartless_.

* * *

(_twelve_)

Oh my God, she _hates_ him, her father. And fairytales and heroes and all that delicate fairy glitter bullshit that a cop (her mother should have _known_ better) fed to a fragile little girl not even five years ago yet.

* * *

(_nineteen_)

She is pretty and young and eternal and forever physically seventeen and she sings badly in the car with the windows firmly rolled up.

She knows that she can sing well, too, but it's so much more _fun_ to purposefully sing badly, sometimes.

And he knows all these things about her, though _how_ he knows them she doesn't know.

Caroline takes Elena off shopping for her wedding dress (he doesn't particularly care which brother she finally chose, so Caroline doesn't tell him because he really just doesn't appear to be interested, honestly) and sees him in a new Hybrid right behind her as they're driving away from the store.

She texts him later (he somehow got her number a while back and hasn't left her alone since then, so she might as well torture him back, she reasons) about his ironic car choice. Knows it's on purpose, to make her eyes narrow and her nose scrunch and her lips purse at him. (She thinks that somehow he _likes_ that curious look on her face, or something similar to that.)

_A Hybrid? Really?_

He hardly even waits thirty seconds before he texts her back, and she knows how eager he is. He just can't cover it up, especially when she initiates the contact. (Well, actually, he initiated the contact when he drove behind her as she took Elena home and then went to her own house, which was just plain creepy, but still. She knows how his mind works, and in his self-delusioned mind, she started it.)

_Save the environment, sweetheart. You're gonna be around in two hundred years to see the effects of humanity's stupidity. So I'm all for the hybrids._

She notices how he doesn't capitalize "hybrids," and knows it's deliberately done. Because he always has an ulterior motive, a double meaning. _Always_.

* * *

(_fifty-four_)

She gets home from work (she's been a fashion designer—again—for the past two years, and she'll have to be moving on soon, maybe in six months or so, because her coworker Denise is starting to get suspicious) and he's there in her kitchen. She can't say she didn't expect to see him again eventually, but she kind of expected _he_ would wait for _her_ to make the first move, really. He's always been like that—always wanted to manipulate someone into doing what he wants, instead of just _making_ them like he so easily could.

"'Sup," she greets him, dropping her purse on the counter. She picks up her coffee pot and starts to pour the leftover dregs of this morning's coffee into her favorite mug. It's used, but who cares. It's not like she gives a damn about what he thinks. "What are you doing here? What do you want?"

He starts perusing through her casually-left purse shamelessly, and only winks at her when she raises her eyebrow in question, placing him on the spotlight (where he loves to be).

"Just wanted to see you, love."

She's tempted to snap back at him that she's not his goddamn _love _or his precious little fucking _sweetheart_ and that he has no right to use those nicknames on her. And were this thirty or ten or, hell, maybe even six years ago, she would have said so. But she's grown now, almost impossibly fast. She never before thought that one could grow so quickly. But she has. And now she knows to hold her temper, because yelling at him will only encourage him. That's the way that it has always been, no altering it. (She's had forty or so years to figure him out, and by now she has, somewhat.)

"Can I ask why? You didn't want to see me last time," she says as calmly as possible, sipping at her freezing cold coffee. But she doesn't mind it; she actually likes cold coffee sometimes. And she knows that he hates it, so there's an added bonus.

His lip curls attractively (who knew it was fucking impossible for him to be unattractive) as he watches her drink the old coffee, and she knows she's got him.

"Things change, Caroline. People change."

"I think you've had enough time for changing. Don't you?" she says as mildly as she possibly can, drinking the remains of the coffee and cradling it in her hands against her flat stomach. (No baby. Never any babies. Not even a fucking remnant of brunch. It just…_stays_ that way. And when she was sixteen, she never thought that there would come a day that she would long to gain weight, pregnancy-wise or not. But here it is, and here she is, with no children and no hope of them. So. No fixing that, either.)

"Probably," he shrugs. "I don't know. Haven't been keeping track. You know the day, love?"

"Check the calendar beside the fridge," she says absentmindedly as she digs through her purse for her day planner. She has a meeting at four o'clock tomorrow, and a ton of paperwork to catch up on, and she has to train a new intern to be her personal secretary in the morning. If she remembers correctly from the interview, this one _may_ last up to a month. (What can she say. She's hard on the people she needs to be hard on. It's just the way that the fashion world works—and the news world, and the business world, and the world of politics, all of which she's played a part in. All of her businesses are usually public, so she sticks to the jobs that stay in the shadows. It's just what has to happen when you're eternally young.)

He purses his lips and runs a finger down the length of the calendar. "Hm. May. It's a beautiful month, May, don't you think?"

"Mhm," she mumbles. "Beautiful. Sometimes."

He taps his wandering finger to his lower lip in some indecipherable rhythm, one that she can't recognize (not that she pays much attentions to his long, gentle hands or his smooth, faintly-knowing-smirking lips). "Have you actually _seen_ Barcelona or are you just living here, sweetheart?"

"Both, _sweetheart_, and I have a meeting in twenty minutes so I'll leave you alone for now."

(She doesn't, but it might throw him off track and maybe make him leave her alone for a short while.)

Instead, he just smirks and sits at the counter. "I'll be here, then. When you get back," he clarifies needlessly. "Have a fun meeting, love."

It takes nearly all of her willpower to just grit her teeth and exit her apartment, rifled-through purse in one hand and key in the other, without saying something stupid and angry to him. She succeeds, but just barely. It's a close one, she nearly yells at him after he kisses her cheek without permission as she exits.

She's still mad about that when she gets home. She's spent thirty minutes lingering in the nearly-empty office. She normally doesn't leave early, but she made an exception earlier today and she just had to go back to pretend to be in a meeting to avoid a man. An extremely annoying man. So she's just a little bit pissed off now. She has been lately. Of course, that's how she's always been around him especially. He just manages to somehow…infuriate her. Worse than Damon Salvatore, and that's saying something.

Clicking her heels down the hallway, she enters her apartment, first coming upon the stainless steel kitchen that she paid for but has never really used, exception for the occasional chicken or lasagna for a work party hosted at her place.

There's a million year old Original standing in her kitchen now in front of the stove, cooking bacon and eggs and making tea. He has an apron tied around him—where the hell did he even get that, she doesn't _own_ a fucking apron, or tea bags, what on earth—and it looks oddly domestic in a funny sort of way. Klaus, the man who has ripped out hearts without a second thought and murders for no reason other than the fun of it—and he's cooking in her kitchen wearing an apron with grease stains on it. Well, she's always thought he'd be a good cook. He's had a million years to practice. (Besides, he just exudes that confidence, like he can and will do anything. Even scramble eggs, and he'll do it better than anybody you've ever seen do it before. That's the way she perceives him, anyway.)

(_He dances well, too_, her mind chimes in, remembering the way they danced so many years ago, and she shuts her mental monologue up.)

"Thought you'd like breakfast for dinner tonight," he offers when he notices her there over the sound of sizzling bacon—basically, she drops her purse and he jumps like a scared little schoolgirl (not that big bad Klaus will ever admit that, though).

She offers up a small smile, though he probably doesn't deserve it. "Thanks."

They eat in silence ten minutes later, swallowing their bacon down with blood and tea, and she says nothing and he has no way of getting her to talk—he's learned that by now—and so that's all they are: two people, sitting at a kitchen counter, one of them wearing a business-y dress and the other in an apron, one with hair pinned up without a stray curl to mess it up and the other with his hair looking perfect and uncombed and casually flawless.

And somehow they look picture perfect together.

But picture perfect belongs to fairy tales, and fairy tales just aren't Caroline Forbes's thing. Nor are they Klaus's.

They never have been, and they probably never could be.

* * *

(_thirty-eight_)

Damon calls her stupid and useless _again_ and she is angry. And she throws her shoe through the wall. No, literally, through the wall—through plaster and everything, she's that pissed. She's reminded of being seventeen, and her first serious guy (never mind that he screwed her life totally over and changed her forever) calling her shallow and stupid and useless and leaving her alone. Being the one thing that she depended on, and then leaving her with a smirk and a few choice cold remarks.

Her shoe looks a little…um, ruined.

It has a hole in it, and the heel is broken.

Damon whistles (it just barely missed his eye, hitting the wall instead) and leans up against the adjoining wall. "Damn, Blondie, you got aim."

"Damn right," she snarls. "Now go before I decide to use that aim to put my nails and your eyeballs together."

He scoffs, offers up another sarcastic quip, but leaves nonetheless because inside he's just a little boy lost.

(Why are all the men in her life the same way?)

Then _he_ shows up and she skips a breath because he's just that sudden. Standing there in full-on all-out Original glory, wearing ripped jeans and a dark tan leather jacket and a white Grateful Dead t-shirt. And he looks like more of a badass in this outfit, with that confidence, than Damon Salvatore ever did in his leather and black getup. (But _he's_ a little boy lost too, and she reminds herself of this.)

"I'll rip his heart out for you," he says carelessly, nonchalant and calm. "I have no love for the elder Salvatore brother."

She just sighs. "I don't either. I mean," she goes on, "we have a lot of amazing sexual tension, but" —she sees the murderous jealous look in his eyes (she reads him better than anybody else around here, that's for sure) and lets the subject go— "I don't care for him."

The look slowly disappears and now he's just studying her. "Then why protect him?" he finally asks.

"Because Elena cares about him," she says firmly, "and I protect my friends and the people that they care about."

"Who do you think she'll choose?" he asks, not seeming very curious indeed—he just likes to hear her talk.

"She already chose once," she points out. "The engagement was broken off because of the Bonnie thing, and they just haven't started up again. And she's a little confused again, but…look, what am I saying, she'll choose who she wants to be with in the end and you don't even really care. You haven't cared from the beginning, I remember that much."

"I like hearing you speak to me," he says. "And doing it without a taste of disgust in your tone."

"What can I say," she shoots back, "you're pretty disgusting sometimes."

He just sighs back. "Yes, I know." And he's gone, faster than a regular vampire could ever be, with the speed and strength of an Original and a hybrid combined.

Two weeks later, she gets a package, unsigned and unrevealing. The shoe inside of it matches the one she broke when she got pissed at Damon for being his regular asshole self. She searches the package and finds a Sticky Note taped to the bottom of it.

_ Thought you might like to actually not limp your way down on the aisle on Elena's wedding day. Admit it, these are your favorite shoes. You'll still be wearing them when she chooses._

_ Save me a dance on that day._

_—Klaus._

Over twenty years later, and he still can't stop leaving her notes.

(And it's a perfect fit, but she's never been a goddamn Cinderella type. And the creep probably just found out her shoe size by compelling the local store or something.)

* * *

(_seventy-two_)

He starts to stick around.

It begins on Elena's wedding day (forty years of more and more bickering later) when she invites him to dance. (And she's wearing the same damn shoes, just like he predicted, but she hopes he doesn't notice.)

He's lounging around the bar and exchanging snide comments with Kol about the bridesmaids' dresses when she walks up. "Um, excuse me, _I_ am a bridesmaid and this color, which I helped to pick out, looks _fabulous_ and you know it," she announces imperiously, and holds her hand out to his. "Come on, I love this song and there's no one else here I can or want to claim a dance with."

Something unknowable—a shadow of a genuine smile (_genuine beauty_)—passes over his face as he takes her hand and stands.

"You've never asked me to dance before," he remarks evenly, calm as ever as the music quiets. The other dancers are in a romantic pose, and so she places her left hand on his shoulder. His right hand goes onto her waist, stroking it fondly with his thumb until she shoots him a glare telling him in no uncertain terms to back off or his thumb will soon be unattached to the rest of his body. Her right hand and his left clasp and their fingers entwine. Her head is almost on his right shoulder and she's this close to letting it rest there—she's so damn tired, but of what, she doesn't know. (Denial?)

She smiles faintly as her eyes close with the music and her head falls against his shoulder. "I can trust you not to step on my toes," she murmurs. "And you'll hold me up. I can trust you for that."

"Always," he whispers into her ear, and she shivers as he breathes it ever so softly.

"_The book of love is long and boring and written very long ago, it's full of flowers and heart-shaped boxes and things we're all too young to know_," whispers the singer, and she nestles closer to the comforting heat he gives her, rubbing their skin so close together she can almost imagine the sparks, feel them vibrating within the two of them.

Afterwards, when the reception ends she invites him over to her apartment for a drink. She's been lonely lately—fifty years is a long time to not have a boyfriend, after all—and most of her new coworkers only know her work-driven side and therefore think that she's a bitch (she can't help it, it's just what happens when she gets involved in something).

He cooks ossobuco—"a lovely Italian meal, I just know you'll like it, Caroline"—for her and they eat it in her living room, laughing over glasses of red wine about nothing and everything. She loves the meal, just as he plans. That night, he takes her offer of sleeping on the couch—he's a little tipsy, if possible for a vampire, and she doesn't trust him to get home without getting into trouble.

And afterwards, he just…_stays_. He lounges in the kitchen as she makes breakfast, cooks for her, plays music, even starts sketching at the windowsill of her apartment: pictures of the city and his family and of her, most especially of her. He's there when she leaves for work in the morning and he's always there when she gets back home. And slowly, it falls into a rhythm. Their routine is…soothing and reliable. She's almost dependent on it.

She invites him to a work party one day because people at work tease her for not having a date. And despite all of her claims that she's no longer insecure, there's still that little human teenager inside of her that longs to show everyone up. He accepts rather graciously, considering that most days when she comes home she insults him, cooks for him, and goes to bed without another word towards him. They go there by taxi, with her dress in a fabulous little red cocktail number and him in a very impressive suit.

He impresses every single one of her coworkers.

She quite honestly doesn't know how it happens. Most of these people don't even know her name, but after one little grin from him, they're all hanging onto him and giving her compliments. They all love his fashion sense (she's in the fashion business again, as it is one of her favorites) and style and charisma. Her assistant, Gina, walks up to her and whispers in her ear, begging her, "Propose to him already! He's perfect!"

She only laughs at Gina's suggestion, tells everyone that they're just friends, and refuses to acknowledge her jealousy when Amanda invites Klaus over for the night not-so-subtly. (Thankfully, he turns her down. Good, too. She's the whore of the office.)

She only laughs, but three months later he shows her a drawing of her that she's never seen before. It's her, standing at the railing of her balcony outside of her apartment. Stars shine in the background, and the black night provides a perfect contrast against her paleness. Her hair is loose and free and her dress is beautiful and red. She wears no makeup and no shoes, only her stark beauty. And she loves it.

She's a little tipsy when he shows her the picture, so without even being aware of it, the next thing she knows is her dragging him to her bed (the bed he's never even seen before) by his tie and pulling him on top of her. He grins, asks her if this is what she wants, and she kisses him and tells him _yes_.

They break the fucking bed.

* * *

(_seventy-four_)

He proposes in December in Milan.

It's a cold day as far as Rome goes, wintery and blustery, and she's wrapping her scarf around her neck as they leave the restaurant when he drops to one knee, black jacket wrapped tensely around his broad shoulders, pulling the little black box effortlessly out of his faded blue jeans pocket.

She almost screams, because this is her first proposal (and her last) and she doesn't know what to _do_.

Instead, her mouth allows her only to make a tiny little soundless O. Klaus lets a small smile cross his lips, but it vanishes almost instantly and he's looking at her intently. Her brain isn't catching up with this. So instead she focuses on the ring in the little tiny black box that she dreamed of as a little girl before her dreams were broken.

It's a nice size, not too small or too big, with a blue stone surrounded by smaller white diamonds. "It's beautiful," she breathes.

The smile returns, gentler and more hesitant. "Caroline Forbes," he murmurs, "would you do me the honor of becoming my wife?"

"Oh my God," she sputters, "I can't believe you actually said that."

Okay, not the best answer ever, but he _sprang_ this on her and that line is so fucking cliché! And Klaus Michaelson is never traditional.

His hand lowers the tiniest bit, with the most hesitant and unsure expression she's ever seen on his face appearing and crossing over him vulnerably, and she grabs it, steadying it at its original height. Slowly, she lifts him up by the arm that she's holding until he's at his normal height again and standing tall. Ever so silently, she lets him go and holds out her left hand. "Of course I will," she whispers.

It's cheesy and breathless and she's pretty sure she can hear Celine Dion singing in the background or something…and it's perfect.

He slips the ring on her finger, but she's too busy kissing him to notice. And of course it fits like a dream.

* * *

(_seventy-five_)

This is her happy ending.

Her throwing her arms around his neck when he carries her across their threshold because he "is doing this the right way," as he explains ever so calmly when she tries to say no. (No one can ever say no to Klaus for very long, compulsion or no.)

Him letting her lean against him while they watch a chick flick of her choosing. And letting her raise her eyebrows at his choice for their next movie, which is usually some sort of equally sensitive but also explosion-filled film, if such a thing is possible (with Klaus, anything is possible. He probably wrote the damn screenplay).

Them wandering the streets of the world, living forever and never changing or dying or growing old.

Him dropping her off in Mystic Falls so she can spend time with Elena and Bonnie—Bonnie, who can't go on shopping sprees anymore, but they can sit there and talk and pretend like all three of them will live forever when it reality it's just two—and letting her cry into his shoulder later in the taxi because Bonnie was never meant to be left behind (or was it her and Elena that were left behind?).

Her dragging him along to a museum, where he points out the artworks that he drew himself and had placed in here.

Klaus painting in his studio of their apartment in Scotland (they have homes everywhere, but he's partial to this one for several reasons) and Caroline watching him in conversation-less silence as music quietly provides a background—usually soft music to help him think—and he makes a world of his own with his hands as a storm gently thunders and makes its presence known outside.

Caroline stepping on his foot purposefully during a dance when he says something cocky or teasingly mean.

Avoiding Damon and having drinks with Stefan and teasingly flirting with Kol (only on her part) and befriending Rebekah and laughing with Elijah at drunk Klaus and having fun with Elena and Bonnie. And being with Klaus, the man who never left, who never gave up, who never called her useless, who never thought of her as evil, who never cheated on her. The man who changed her for the better as she changed him for the better.

It's not perfect—they're vampires so it will never be perfect—but it's theirs and that's all she's ever wanted. And besides, they have forever to achieve perfection. If anyone can, it's them, she has no doubt.

This is her happy ending, but the thing about vampires is that there are no endings. And perhaps that's the best part of it all. They have each other forever.

* * *

A/N: Hi, guys! So, I haven't written a lot of Klaroline before, but I put a lot of work into this so I hope you like it! The song is Peter Gabriel's "The Book of Love," which I love ever so much. :)

Anyway, thank you for reading this and happy holidays!


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